Prom Night
Starring: Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Dana Davis, Ronnie Heflin, Idris Elba, and Johnathan Schaech
Direcor: Nelson McCormick
Writer: J. S. Cardone
Production Companies: Alliance Films, Newmarket Films, and Original Film
Release Date: April 10, 2008
Awards: 2009 Chainsaw Award for Worst Film at the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards
I'm slightly amused that a remake like Prom Night
Donna Keppel's family was killed three years ago by Richard Fenton, a teacher who became obsessed with her. He wanted her for himself, so killing her family was a way to give her nowhere else to go. But he got arrested and put away for life in a psychiactric hospital.
Three years later and Donna's a senior. It's the night of the senior prom. She and boyfriend Bobby are going with friend couples Ronnie and Lisa, and Claire and Michael. Unfortunately, Fenton broke out of the hospital a few days earlier. Let the massacre begin.
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See, horror gets its own genre because it depends on certain things: surprise, shock and scares, and the supernatural. You don't have to have all of these, but mostly there is a combination of some sort. Prom Night
doesn't have the surprise. We know who the killer is from the beginning, we know why he is killing, and we can tell when someone is about to get killed. The original Prom Night with Jamie Lee Curtis
has surprise. The "killer" from the past wasn't the killer then and isn't the killer now. The original had a well played red herring, the remake doesn't. Because we know who the killer is and can see when and how he is about to kill someone, we aren't scared when he does, and the lack of gore prevents us from being shocked. In Hannibal
we know who the killer is, Hannibal Lecter, and we usually know when he's going to kill someone, but tension is increased because of Hopkins's performance and careful delays. Also, we are often shocked by Hannibal's brutality in contrast with his cool, charming demeanor. Clearly Prom Night
doesn't have anything supernatural, or implied supernatural. By comparison, the antagonist in John Carpenter's Halloween
Michael Myers, behaves in a supernatural sense, although at the beginning he's just an insane killer. We know who the killer is, but his face is constantly hidden behind a mask, he is silent, he seems to appear out of nowhere, and he seems impervious to injury. All of those are beyond the natural. Prom Night
doesn't have any of these. It's more like Die Hard
. We know the villain, we know he's going to lose, we just don't know how. But with no gore to make it horror and no explosions and car chases to make it action, it's left in genre limbo.
Prom Night
The original Prom Night
Clock Tower
Brittany Snow will star in the 2010 release of Clock Tower. This film is an adaptation of the horror video game series which recently released Clock Tower 3
The Unborn
Idris Elba, who played Detective Winn, starts in The Unborn
Quarantine
Johnathan Schaech, who played Richard Fenton, also stars in Quarantine
The Stepfather
Director Nelson McCormick tackles another 80's horror remake with The Stepfather
The Forsaken
J. S. Cordone also wrote The Forsaken
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